1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of transmitting information over communication networks, and more particularly, to a system and method for communicating images between intercommunicating users.
2. Description of Related Art
Increasingly, people are choosing to communicate with each other via computer networks, such as the Internet. Popular forms of communicating over the Internet include e-mail and chat rooms. Recently, instant messaging has become a popular format for communicating over the Internet. Instant messaging is a type of communication service that enables a user to carry on an electronic “conversation” with another individual, and to maintain personal or private lists of persons that the user communicates with frequently. Typically, the instant messaging system alerts the user whenever somebody on his or her private list is online. Then, the user can initiate a conversation session with that particular individual in a near real-time manner by typing messages and reading typed responses.
A deficiency of many instant messaging systems is that, because instant messaging is generally a text-based system, a user cannot see the person that the user is communicating with. Without any visual contact, it is difficult to communicate emotions or understand messages as easily as if, for example, one could observe the facial expressions of the person one is communicating with. Furthermore, without seeing the person, the identity of the person cannot be confirmed. Accordingly, while instant messaging is a popular means of communicating, it is, in some respects, an unnatural and awkward form of communication.
Video conferencing has existed for some time, but its use has not been largely popular for various reasons. Generally, video conferencing is a system whereby an uploader or broadcaster (person sending an image) uses a camera or other such image capture device to send his image to one or more viewers (person or persons receiving and viewing the image). By its nature, video conferencing tends to demand larger resources (network transport resources (e.g., bandwidth) and/or processing and equipment resources at the end user) and is more complex than, for example, text or audio based systems. This relatively large use of resources and bandwidth makes use of video conferencing difficult, especially for the typical home computer user, who may have a dial-up or other relatively slow (low bandwidth) Internet connection.
A variety of systems have been created in an attempt to overcome these deficiencies. Some simple systems involve sending an image to a central server through a standard protocol, such as FTP, at regular intervals of time, while a similar system at the receiving end grabs the images at periodic intervals from the central server for viewing. Such systems have the overhead of making and breaking a connection for every single image frame processed. Furthermore, these systems cannot synchronize an uploader system and a viewer system, nor can they perform intelligent optimization since there is no dedicated connection. Examples of such systems are the ones offered by spotlife (http://www.spotlife.com/), and Earthcam TV (http://tv.earthcam.com/).
Other publicly available video conferencing systems, such as Microsoft's NetMeeting (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/), are more complex. NetMeeting allows one-on-one video conferencing essentially through a peer-to-peer connection only. A central server is used only for the purpose of determining a user location and is optional. Another example of a similar system is CuSeeme (http://www.cuseeme.com/).
Another shortcoming of these systems is that they may limit bandwidth for a single viewer session or limit the number of viewer sessions. Such systems may be subject to relatively large costs and may be open to attacks from hackers who may try to break or disrupt a video conferencing system by uploading or viewing a large number of images.
Another shortcoming of known systems is that they may reduce their performance to the lowest common denominator, that is, images can be served only as fast as the slowest viewer can receive them. As such, a need exists for an improved system and method for transmitting images.